Hopperesque

Hopperesque

Wednesday, 12 February 2025

The Big Nowhere


          Thundershowers hit just before midnight drowning out the horn honks and noise maker blare that usually signalled New years eve on the Strip, bringing 1950 to the West Hollywood sub station in a wave of hot squeals with meat wagon backup.

The Big Nowhere
James Ellroy
1988

Tuesday, 11 February 2025

Life in the Shadows #46

Rampart

The Big Combo

Last Seduction

Crossfire

Detour

Dark City (1998)

The Set Up

Chinatown

Third Man

Vertigo

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Perry Mason (2021)

Lady from Shanghai

Babylon Berlin

Gun Crazy

Crash (1996)

To Have and Have Not

Blade Runner

The Thief (1952)

Saturday, 8 February 2025

Perfect Specimen

        Maybe coffee would help. He lit a fire under the percolator and sat down at the table and stared at the floor. He turned his head slowly and gazed out the kitchen window. The rain was letting up and he could hear it's weak patter on walls and rooftops. If it rained for an entire month it wouldn't begin to clean these miserable tenements, he thought. The ugly cobbled streets like a pock marked face. And the people. The waterfront bums. The human ruins. A perfect specimen was right here in this kitchen.

David Goodis
Cassidy's Girl
1951
             https://www.jasonhalf.com/blog/book-review-cassidys-girl-1951-by-david-goodis

Friday, 7 February 2025

Truth in the Shadows

Rillington Place (2016)

In Cold Blood

Dance with a Stranger

Call Northside 777

Fatal Vision

Pembrokeshire Murders

Fourteen Hours

Des

Summer of Sam

I Want to Live !

Zodiac

Waco : The Aftermath

Thursday, 6 February 2025

Only Aimed to Be


Almost blue
Flirting with this disaster became me
It named me as the fool who only aimed to be
Almost blue

Almost Blue
(Costello)
Chet Baker

image
Lee Friedlander
(Annie Ross, Chet Baker,
Gerry Mulligan)

               https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBY6Ckk0CNA&ab_channel=raffaeleguerrieri

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

More Jennifer Connelly

Dark City (1998)

The Hot Spot

House of Sand and Fog

Requiem for a Dream

Mullholland Drive

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Risks He Took



           The risks he took were not underwritten. His skill on the arena of green cloth - cloth that itself was the color of money - could never be only pretense.

Walter Tevis

image
Folio illustration agency

Sunday, 2 February 2025

Billie Holiday



     She Knew her place. And sometimes she didn't want to stay in her place. That's why she's Billie Holiday.

James Erskine

from The Troubled Brilliance of Billie Holiday
Alex Godfrey
The Guardian 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/nov/06/billie-holiday-documentary-lost-tapes-racism-in-united-states

Saturday, 1 February 2025

Mosaic Noir #217

Plein Soleil

Hidden Room

Hot Spot

Mr Arkadin

Friends of Eddie Coyle

Pale Flower

Shutter Island

Les Maudits

Ruby

Secret Beyond the Door

Angel Heart

Wages of Fear

No Country for Old Men